Book Image

SDL Game Development

By : Shaun Mitchell
5 (1)
Book Image

SDL Game Development

5 (1)
By: Shaun Mitchell

Overview of this book

SDL 2.0 is the latest release of the popular Simple DirectMedia Layer API, which is designed to make life easier for C++ developers, allowing you simple low-level access to various multiplatform audio, graphics, and input devices.SDL Game Development guides you through creating your first 2D game using SDL and C++. It takes a clear and practical approach to SDL game development, ensuring that the focus remains on creating awesome games.Starting with the installation and setup of SDL, you will quickly become familiar with useful SDL features, covering sprites, state management, and OOP, leading to a reusable framework that is extendable for your own games. SDL Game Development culminates in the development of two exciting action games that utilize the created framework along with tips to improve the framework.

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SDL Game Development
Shaun Mitchell
Jun, 2013 | 256 pages
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Table of Contents (16 chapters)
SDL Game Development
SDL Game Development
Credits
Credits
About the Author
About the Author
About the Reviewers
About the Reviewers
www.PacktPub.com
www.PacktPub.com
Preface
Preface
Free Chapter
1
Getting Started with SDL
Getting Started with SDL
Why use SDL?
Setting up SDL in Visual C++ Express 2010
Hello SDL
What makes up a game
The Game class
Summary
2
Drawing in SDL
Drawing in SDL
Basic SDL drawing
Source and destination rectangles
Installing SDL_image
Tying it into the framework
Summary
3
Working with Game Objects
Working with Game Objects
Using inheritance
Implementing polymorphism
Using abstract base classes
Should we always use inheritance?
Putting it all together
Summary
4
Exploring Movement and Input Handling
Exploring Movement and Input Handling
Setting up game objects for movement
Creating fixed frames per second
Input handling
Summary
5
Handling Game States
Handling Game States
A simple way for switching states
Implementing finite state machines
Implementing menu states
Summary
6
Data-driven Design
Data-driven Design
Loading XML files
Implementing Object Factories
Fitting the factory into the framework
Parsing states from an XML file
Loading the menu state from an XML file
Loading other states from an XML file
Summary
7
Creating and Displaying Tile Maps
Creating and Displaying Tile Maps
What is a tile map?
Getting familiar with the Tiled application
Parsing and drawing a tile map
Scrolling a tile map
Parsing object layers
Summary
8
Creating Alien Attack
Creating Alien Attack
Using the SDL_mixer extension for sound
Setting up the basic game objects
Handling bullets
Dealing with collisions
Possible improvements
Summary
9
Creating Conan the Caveman
Creating Conan the Caveman
Setting up the basic game objects
Possible additions
Summary
Index
Index

Possible improvements

Alien Attack is a pretty robust game at the moment; we highly recommend looking through the source code and becoming familiar with every aspect of it. Once you have a good understanding of most of the areas of the game, it is a lot easier to see where certain areas could be enhanced. Here are some ideas that could be added to improve the game:

  • Bullets could be created at the start of a level and stored in an object pool; so rather than creating and deleting bullets all the time they can be pulled from and put back into the object pool. The main advantage of this approach is that the creation and destruction of objects can be quite expensive when it comes to performance. Eliminating this while the game is running could give a real performance boost.

  • Collision detection could be optimized further, possibly through the addition of a Quadtree to stop unnecessary collision checks.

  • The source code has a few areas that use string comparisons to check types. This can be a bit...

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